Scorch Marks
by shallowness
Summary: Wes Stronghold powers up. It is and it isn't what they've all been waiting for. Futurefic Pairings and warnings inside.


Sky High, post-movie, futurefic, Will/Layla, Warren/Layla.

**Summary: **Wes Stronghold powers up. It is and it isn't what they've all been waiting for.

**  
Spoilers/Warnings: **Melodrama, infidelity.

**Word Count:** 1,219

**Disclaimer: **These characters are not mine, and I make no profit from this fan fiction.

**Notes: **This just had to be written. Big thanks to the wonderful Pyroblaze18 for beta reading and this, all errors are mine.

Scorch Marks: shallowness

_Layla_ _will always remember those moments when she shocked Will. For those few moments, it was as if her power was the ability to stop time, and, for those few moments, every well-known feature of his face seemed a little more defined. _

"_We're going to have a baby?" He came back to life to ask. There were a dozen and one reactions in that one question and most of them were good. She smiled in relief; he'd make a great father. The sort who crouched down to play, who'd take his share and more of sleepless nights, and whose arms would never tire of carrying their kid. _

* * *

Wes might be a Stronghold, but he took after Layla: red hair, brown eyes. He was curious and alert, but slow to talk.

Everyone assumed he'd have Layla's powers too, or maybe an affinity with minerals. Only grandpa Steve held out hopes of super-strength. His reasoning was that Will had taken on both of his parents' powers, so why not his son? He kept trying to make Wes pick up impossibly heavy stuff – chairs and tables – but someone was always there to tuck Wes away to safety, usually grandma Josie, who would never, ever drop him just to see if he could fly.

The trouble with these inevitable conversations was that that they usually made Will remember all those years when he'd thought he'd never get powers. Layla could tell that from his face, so she'd start telling funny stories about the latest crazy thing Wes had done: "So he nearly got his head stuck in a saucepan. Kerazy, right?" And Wes would start crying because everyone was laughing at him. Eventually he'd be given back to Layla, who would kiss him, and apologize to him for telling the embarrassing story amidst her shushing.

She played it down whenever anyone talked about it, but she did wonder when Wes would power up. She could barely remember a time when she couldn't reach out to plants, but Will had had to wait so long and everyone at school had fallen somewhere in between. She worried about where Wes would fall on the scale, but, unlike Will, she never doubted that it would happen.

Although he showed no more signs of controlling plants than he did of any other powers, it was true that Wes loved being out in the garden, which suited and relieved Layla. She could create a canopy for him and get on with her work, tending to herbs and other kinds of plants with beneficial properties, but nothing that produced leaves or shoots that would make her baby sick. She kept a close eye on him, mostly for mom stuff like stopping him from swallowing too many stones and worms. Especially the worms. She never told her mom the stories about Wes and the worms.

The day that Will called her, she was helping to regenerate land south of Maxville that had been poisoned by a chemical spill, while he had been on solo Wes duty at home. His voice was too strained for the good news he was sharing: "You've got to come home. Wes has powered up."

He hung up before she could respond. She was left holding the phone, sputtering. All the warmth of helping out and undoing a wrong dissipated. The sun might still be out, but she couldn't feel it. She made her excuses to the team and left, hoping it was just that Wes had made a tree grow inside their living room or some other teensy thing that had made Will sound like that. She tried remembering that wacky Christmas story from her childhood when she'd 'helped' a neighbor's scraggy tree grow. But other memories intruded.

The smell of burning hit her before she opened the door of their house. She hustled in. There were dark circles of soot everywhere, on the walls and floors. She got in as far as the living area to see that a coffee table that Josie and Steve had given them was gone. There were piles of ashes at Will's feet. He didn't stand up to greet her; he was sitting, holding a sleeping Wes in his arms. For the first time ever, it looked as if Will found the boy heavy.

"I always wondered," he said, "why you didn't want Warren to be Wes's godfather. Why it had to be Zach. Now I know."

Will didn't sound like this, she thought. His voice was so different from usual. Raspier. She blinked.

"It— it was when you were lost in the Pacific, and we were waiting for news. It was a…" She stopped. He was looking at her, but his face was rigid and his eyes were dead. How could she explain the weight that had pressed down on her all those long hours? How Warren was the only one who allowed her to breathe. She hadn't wanted anyone else, Magenta and her mother talked, Zach and Steve paced, Ethan was huddled over a computer, listening in to all the relevant frequencies. Josie had been flying over the Pacific. She'd been the one who found Will, after everyone else had given up.

Maybe Warren had just been the calm to her storm, but he'd drawn her in, and when he'd held her, she could breathe. Until she'd realized she was breathing him in and he was holding her hard. There was a second when she stopped breathing, when she could have pushed him away, but right then, she'd wanted Warren, not a world of pacing and dread.

"Warren was there, and he—"

"It's pretty obvious what happened next," Will snapped. "Why didn't you ever tell me? Why did you let me think…?" He looked down at Wes as though he were a changeling.

"No! Don't! You could have been his natural father," Layla said simply. "And you're a great father."

She'd always wanted him to be the father of her children. Always thought he would be. And so she, the most terrible of liars, had covered that time up, and made Will Wesley's father. But now Will's face had changed, and the way he held Wes had changed with it. She whispered, "What can I do? What do we do now?"

Will passed her son to her, and the only word that came to mind to describe the action was 'clinical'.

"I'll clean up the mess here," he said. And she stood there, with an armful of sleeping boy, his breathing regular. But as far as Will seemed concerned, they weren't there, just the wrecked remains of their furniture, and, right then, she knew, their lives.

* * *

_She knew Wes hadn't gained weight since she'd cuddled him goodbye that morning, but she moved slowly, feeling as if leaving the room, the house, would be giving up._

_She walked all the way, it wasn't far, and it felt right that her arms were tired from the weight. She even took the stairs up to the apartment, her son making a little moan in his sleep as she adjusted him to knock on the door. Her eyes flickered shut for a few moments._

"_Yeah?"_

"_I want you to meet someone," Layla said._

"_Who, Wes?_ _We've met before." He frowned at her, expecting a punch line._

"_No, Warren, your son."_

END

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